12 Guardians of the Galaxy Mashups

The new Marvel Comics movie Guardians of the Galaxy isn’t set to hit theaters until August, but it already has the internet buzzing. Comic book readers are familiar with the characters, and can’t wait to see how Walt Disney Studios treats the franchise. To the rest of us, the characters are new and intriguing. And, of course, when new characters are introduced into mainstream pop culture, the artists of the internet plunge headlong into mashing up those characters with other, more familiar worlds.

1 and 2. Parks and Recreation

The fun began when it was announced a year ago that actor Chris Pratt was cast in the role of Peter Quill, with the superhero name of Star-Lord. Pratt is also one of the main characters on the sitcom Parks and Recreation, which led illustrator Kyle Hilton to wonder what the movie would be like if they cast all the parts with actors from the TV show. The result was this movie poster at Vulture.

That was quickly followed by a trailer mashup using the music and style of the Parks and Recreation introduction over video introducing the Guardians of the Galaxy characters.

3. The Lego Movie

Since Chris Pratt was also the voice of the central character in The LEGO Movie, it, too, had to be mashed up into a movie trailer. This one mixes the audio of the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer with appropriate footage from The LEGO Movie.

4. and 5. Star Wars

Any new science fiction movie will inevitably be mashed up with the Star Wars franchise. This poster mashup that includes characters from both worlds is by artist Robert Rath.

DeviantART member BloodySamoan chose to combine the characters from the Star Wars and the GOTG universes. I love the clever names like Groo2-D2.

6. The Giving Tree

How nice of Groot to give a weapon to Rocket Raccoon! See, there is camaraderie and selflessness even in an alien plant monster. This clever mashup of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree with GOTG characters was drawn by Isaac Goodhart.

9. Hello Kitty

10. Venom

DeviantART member JamesWhynotInks was commissioned to create a mashup of Rocket Raccoon and the evil alien Venom from the Spider-Man comics. He doesn’t tell us how the idea came about, but the result is as wild as you would expect.

11. Mickey Mouse

Rocket Raccoon may be a furry forest creature, but he’s also a law enforcement officer and a spaceship captain. So, in the same vein as the Hello Kitty mashup, it’s funny to make him overly cute by drawing him in the style of a sweet familiar character. In this instance, that’s Mickey Mouse, for a t-shirt design by TeeKetch.

12. Space Invaders

Toronto artist Marco D'Alfonso put Rocket Raccoon into the video game world, where he seems to be comfortable doing what he does in the comics: fighting alien species. In this case, the falling Space Invaders.

Art supplies can get pricey when you’re letting your kid’s creativity run wild. But with an endlessly reusable notebook, you never have to worry about running out of paper during that after-school coloring session.

The creators of the erasable Rocketbook Wave have come out with a new version of their signature product meant especially for color drawings. The connected Rocketbook Color notebook allows you to send images drawn on its pages to Google Drive or other cloud services with your phone, then erase the pages by sticking the whole notebook in the microwave. You get a digital copy of your work (one that, with more vibrant colors, might look even better than the original) and get to go on drawing almost immediately after you fill the book.

There’s no special equipment involved beyond the notebook itself. The Rocketbook Color works with Crayola and other brands’ washable crayons and colored pencils, plus dry-erase markers. The pages are designed to be smudge-proof, so turning the page won’t ruin the art on the other side even if you are using dry-erase markers.

Rocketbook’s marketing is aimed at kids, but adults like to save paper, too. Break away from the adult coloring books and go free-form. If it doesn’t quite work out, you can just erase it forever.

In the video below, you can watch Japanese ad agency Dentsu transform passing time into art. According to Adweek, the project was commissioned by Japanese stationery brand Hitotoki, which produces crafting materials. To celebrate the value of handmade items in an increasingly fast-paced world, Dentsu created a film advertisement for their client depicting their goods as a stop-motion clock.

The timepiece ticks off all 1440 minutes in the day, and was assembled in real-time against a colored backdrop during a single 24-hour take. Its "hands" were crafted from different combinations of some 30,000 disparate small items, including confetti, cream puffs, tiny toys, silk leaves, and sunglasses.

"In a world where everything is so hectic and efficient, we wanted to bring the value of 'handmade' to life," explains Dentsu art director Ryosuke Miyashita in a press statement quoted by Stash Media. "We created different combinations of small Hitotoki brand items to express each and every minute."

You can check out a promotional video for the project below, which details the arduous crafting process, or view a real-time version of the clock here.